Castle Rackrent - Softcover

Edgeworth, Maria

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0809515962 ISBN 13: 9780809515967

Publisher: Wildside Press, 2025

Synopsis

Told by an old family servant, this short novel offers a sharp, ironic view of a declining Anglo-Irish estate. Through gossip and recollection, it captures the waste, folly, and ruin of a landowning dynasty. With humor and bite, it explores class, loyalty, and the cost of privilege in a rapidly changing Ireland.

Four generations of foolish landlords-one loyal servant's tale. Can a family survive when it squanders everything but its pride?

About this title

From the Back Cover

Set in Ireland prior to its achieving legislative independence from Britain in 1782, Castle Rackrent tells the story of three generations of an estate-owning family as seen through the eyes -- and as told in the voice -- of their longtime servant, Thady Quirk, recorded and commented on by an anonymous Editor. This edition of Maria Edgeworth's first novel is based on the 1832 edition, the last revised by her, and includes Susan Kubica Howard's foot-of-the-page notes on the text of the memoir as well as on the notes and glosses the Editor offers "for the information of the ignorant English reader." Howard's Introduction situates the novel in its political and historical context and suggests a reading of the novel as Edgeworth's contribution to the discussion of the controversial Act of Union between Ireland and Britain that went into effect immediately after the novel's publication in London in 1800.

About the Author

Although born in England in 1768, Maria Edgeworth was raised in Ireland from a young age after the death of her mother. After nearly losing her sight at age fourteen, Edgeworth was tutored at home by her father, helping to run their estate and taking charge of her younger siblings. Over the course of her life she collaborated and published books with her father, and produced many more of her own adult and children s works, including such classics as Castle Rackrent, Patronage, Belinda, Ormond and The Absentee. Edgeworth spent her entire life on the family estate, but kept up friendships and correspondences with her contemporaries Sir Walter Scott and Lord Byron, and her writing had a profound influence upon Jane Austen and William Makepeace Thackeray. Edgeworth was outspoken on the issues of poverty, women s rights, and racial inequalities. During the beginnings of famine in Ireland, Edgeworth worked in relief and support of the sick and destitute. She died in 1849 at the age of 81.

Edition details

• Publisher: Wildside Press
• Publication date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0809515962
• ISBN 13: 9780809515967
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 116